Half of Big Ussuri became Black Bear Island

Yesterday on the island of Bolshoy Ussuriysky, located on the Amur near Khabarovsk, an official ceremony was held for Russia to transfer 174 square meters to China. km of disputed territories. In a solemn atmosphere, border pillars were opened on the land section of the border, and the parties exchanged notes confirming the completion of the determination of the Russian-Chinese border line along its entire length. The Russian Foreign Ministry, reducing the presence of the media, limited the publicity of the ceremony. The opening ceremony of border pillars on Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, which marked the final establishment of the Russian-Chinese border line, took place yesterday at 2 p.m. The event, the date of which was known in advance, was semi-closed. A Kommersant correspondent who tried to attend the ceremony was told by the regional government that the media admitted to the event were selected by the Department of Information and Press of the Russian Foreign Ministry. In addition, the ministry imposed a temporary moratorium on the publication of captured photos and videos in regional media.

According to eyewitnesses of the transfer of the islands, who wished to remain anonymous, about a hundred representatives of the PRC and 30 Russian officials and security officials took part in the event. The Chinese delegation arrived at the scene of the event (the shore of the Big Ussuri Island closest to the PRC) on boats, setting up a temporary tent camp nearby. “On the Chinese side there were representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in particular the Ambassador of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China to Russia Zhao Sidi, and other government agencies, as well as many journalists and military personnel,” a ceremony participant told Kommersant. Representatives of the Russian side - officials of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Khabarovsk government, border guards and military personnel - arrived on the island by buses and cars across a pontoon bridge built by the Khabarovsk authorities several years ago. The Russian delegation was headed by Vladimir Malyshev, Deputy Director of the First Asian Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in charge of border issues.

Near the border pillars (stone Chinese and wooden Russian) covered with fabric, the participants of the ceremony were greeted by four girls in national costumes of both countries. After the ceremonial raising of the state flags, the veils from the border pillars were removed, representatives of the parties exchanged notes confirming the entry into force of the additional protocol describing the border line (signed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi in Beijing in July 2008), and short speeches in which the method of resolving the border dispute was set as an example to the world community as “conflict-free.” After this, members of the Russian delegation left the ceremony site.

Let us remember that the state affiliation of the Amur Islands was uncertain for more than forty years. According to the Beijing Treaty of 1860, the Russian-Chinese border in the Khabarovsk region ran along the southern shore of the Amur and Ussuri, and, accordingly, the islands of Tarabarov and Bolshoy Ussuriysky were Russian. In 1991, an intergovernmental agreement was concluded, according to which the Soviet-Chinese border was drawn primarily along the main fairway of the Amur. Thus, some of the islands that previously belonged to the USSR went to China (for example, Damansky Island, over which a border conflict occurred in 1969). The islands of Tarabarov and Bolshoy Ussuriysky, as well as Bolshoy Island on the Argun River, were removed from the scope of the agreement. China continued to consider these islands disputed.

In October 2004, during Vladimir Putin’s visit to China, an additional agreement on the Russian-Chinese border was signed, providing for the transfer of the Bolshoi and Tarabarov islands to China, as well as the division of the Bolshoi Ussuri Island into Russian and Chinese parts. The federal law approving the additional agreement was ratified by both chambers of the Russian parliament and signed by the president in 2005. On July 21, 2008, the heads of the Foreign Ministries of the Russian Federation and China, in development of the provisions of the agreement, signed the “Additional protocol describing the line of the Russian-Chinese state border on its eastern part,” which determined the line of the border in the area of the Bolshoi, Tarabarov and Bolshoi Ussuriysky islands. The Chinese side received the entire territory of Tarabarov Island (in the Chinese version - Yinlongdao, Silver Dragon Island) and half of the Big Ussuri Island (Heixiazidao, Black Bear Island). The total area of the territory transferred under Beijing's control was 174 square meters. km.

The decision to transfer the islands on the Amur to China was negatively received by a number of public organizations and opposition parties in the Khabarovsk Territory. In particular, deputies of the Khabarovsk Duma insisted on the extreme importance of the fortified area located on the Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, designed to hold back the onslaught in the event of aggression from China. In addition, the take-off trajectory of air force and air defense combat aircraft lies over Tarabarov Island. Residents of Khabarovsk were extremely unhappy in 2004 with the prospect of transferring the islands. Representatives of public and political associations made harsh statements. “There are our beaches, lands, dachas. We are losing water supply to Khabarovsk, since the Chinese can now block the Kazakevichev channel. We are losing land, water and peace as the city becomes a border town. This could cause a big quarrel among large nations,” said local historian writer Vsevolod Sysoev at the time. Residents of China, meanwhile, perceive this action as the initial stage of a territorial dispute.

As Khabarovsk communist deputy Alexander Gromov reminded Kommersant yesterday, in 2005 “tens of thousands of signatures against the transfer of the islands” were collected and sent to Moscow, but this did not change Moscow’s decision in any way. “It’s bitter to realize that the authorities did what they wanted to do, but now it’s too late to wave their fists,” Mr. Gromov told Kommersant. He also added: “We can only hope that this will all be limited and no more questions will arise regarding the territories bordering China.”

Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Khabarovsk Territory, Yuri Berezutsky, believes that the final transfer of the islands to the PRC opens up great prospects for residents of the region. “We have a unique opportunity, which does not exist anywhere else in the country, to intensify not only trade, but also cultural interaction,” Mr. Berezutsky told Kommersant. Let us recall that the government of the Khabarovsk Territory, having come to terms with the transfer of the islands to the People's Republic of China, has been developing in recent years a project to create a joint Russian-Chinese trade zone on the Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, which provides for the construction of a customs-border crossing on the island and a permanent bridge instead of the currently existing pontoon one. In the future, it is planned to create a new cross-border corridor between China and Russia in this territory.

Dmitry Shcherbakov

Kommersant (Khabarovsk) No. 187 from 10/15/2008

The islands left without noise